Main menu

Tag Archives: culture

When I used to tell people I was separated their response would be sympathetic and consoling; now, when I say that I am divorced I might as well be announcing that I like my toast buttered.

Someone who is separated is accorded a sense of loss and hurt, of a life disturbed with uncertainty ahead, an understanding that the upheaval is recent and emotions are still raw. But with divorce, it is assumed that time has done its work and it is a case of “join the club”.

My own broken marriage of 25 years has taken this familiar path. For a year or so I felt the deepest grief. With crystal clarity I could see the marriage from my wife’s perspective. After living with an undiagnosed depressive for so long, my wife simply had enough. When I was diagnosed with clinical depression, a condition that had been present since my boyhood, she simply wished me well with the rigorous treatment that lay ahead. This was now my battle to be fought alone.

At first it was my wife that I missed dearly. My flowers and plaintive letters only strengthened her resolve. “This has to stop,” she demanded in one letter. “It’s over.”

But the overwhelming and lasting pain came with the loss of my family – our three boys – and the knowledge that I would not get a second chance to be the husband and father I had ceased to be in those last few years, a time when my depression plumbed to its deepest, darkest depths.

My remorse, growing self-awareness and greater control over my depression (with therapy and medication) would have no part to play in reprising my role as husband and father.

In those early days of treatment my psychoanalyst insisted that I had to be my first priority.

“You are no good to anyone, your wife, your children, least of all yourself until you regain your strength and confidence,” he stated bluntly.

“Now is not the time to concern yourself with reconciliation, and I can’t tell you if there ever will be a reconciliation, but I can tell you it will not happen until you are strong again.”

This was easier said than done, of course. I was overwhelmed by the knowledge of what I would be missing, the things I would no longer be able to celebrate as a family – the birthdays, the school events, the graduations. The milestones that one might normally take for granted. But I understood what he was saying.

There is nothing nuanced about a failed marriage

Occasionally one will hear of divorced couples that remarry after some years apart. It’s a happy outcome that speaks to an idealistic hope that wrongs can be set right, lessons hard won can be activated and corrosive behaviours of the past can be exorcised. It’s also a reassuring hope that time cannot erase the good in a relationship that is inevitably overshadowed by the heightened emotions and catalogue of hurts that invariably crashes a decaying marriage against the wall of no-return.

The worst of the trauma of divorce is felt by whomever is not the willing party when it is not a mutual decision, or when the mutuality gives way and at the eleventh hour only one of you is determined that the marriage must end.

There is nothing nuanced about a failed marriage. By the time the final act plays to its torrid and bloody conclusion, there is no room for forgiveness, doubt or sentiment. Every fault is magnified a thousand times, slights previously overlooked coalesce into a damning tsunami of recrimination and the patience of the angels gives way to an unbending determination to endure no more.

Marriages end for many reasons but the end usually comes when one of the partners finally decides ‘enough’. By the time that point is reached, the anger, bitterness and possibly even hatred is all-consuming. Tearful entreaties for another chance will fall on closed hearts. Perhaps the angry and unforgiving brick wall is necessary for protagonists to maintain their resolve.

As a married man, it always struck me as odd, not to say insane, when there was rare news of an estranged couple remarrying. How could a couple step back into the fire of a flawed union?

From my new vantage point of being single after 25 years of marriage my perspective on that is much mellowed. Not because it gives me hope in my own situation – my (ex-) wife seems positively energised by her liberation from me – but because I stand in awe of the power of forgiveness, the supremacy of love and the optimism of spirit that such a reconciliation denotes. (For those who come back together as a matter of convenience, without resolution of the original breaking points, they are very likely buying into a resumed hell on earth.)

Resilience after a long period of fragility

There are men capable of swapping one marriage for another, much as one would return a faulty toaster, but even after four years of separation from my wife this is an alien prospect.

On one occasion, some time ago and to my own surprise, I attempted to initiate a romantic relationship, a venture that was politely declined. And recently I did ask someone I met at a dinner party to lunch, with romantic intent, but that invitation was also declined. Fortunately, in neither case did I find this a crushing experience, which speaks well of my resilience after a long period of fragility.

For those who viscerally feel the pangs of divorce there are various strands of emotional hurt but the overwhelming feeling of rejection looms especially large; doubly so in the case of pleas for reconciliation (or for that matter forgiveness) that are flatly denied. So, I’m rather pleased with myself that having dipped my toe in the waters of romantic possibilities I did not lose a leg to a ravenous shark.

Life does go on; maybe not the life you had envisaged for yourself, and maybe with more ebbs and flows than you would like, but a life of new beginnings, fresh prospects and good friends nonetheless.

I live in the country (Macedon, Victoria), a one-hour train trip from Melbourne, surrounded by gum trees, a spectacular array of bird life and occasional visits by a family of kangaroos. I am occupied with writing a novel (admittedly taking longer than expected, but now five chapters in) and a memoir (which is not the act of vanity that might suggest). Meanwhile, I sustain myself materially with a portfolio of freelance work, some of which is professionally fulfilling, much of which is tosh.

In more ways than one I find myself single-minded. And it’s okay.

Leo D’Angelo Fisher is a Melbourne journalist and commentator. He is a former columnist with BRW and the Australian Financial Review and was a senior writer at The Bulletin magazine. He is a columnist with The New Daily and is on Twitter: @DAngeloFisher

One of the cornerstone arguments to emerge in the same-sex marriage debate is that a ‘Yes’ vote for marriage equality will erode religious freedom. Such cant lays bare the irrelevance of institutional religion in a secular society in which rule of law, not arcane theology, safeguards the rights of all citizens.

Traditional churches are blind to the irony that in demanding the protection of religious freedom they are striking at the freedom of gay and lesbian Australians to marry.

It never ceases to amaze that the pious can be so arrogant. The defenders of the marriage status quo – led by the Australian Christian Lobby – place religious privilege and religious doctrine above the human rights of a group of Australians who for no rational reason are excluded from the institution of marriage.

What is marriage equality but the right to dignity? The right to express love and commitment in a culturally recognised form that is currently only open to one section of the population – at least in Australia?

Churches protest that same-sex marriage offends the sanctity of marriage. There is nothing inherently sacred about marriage, save for the commitment that two people make to each other. Churches are demanding a ‘No’ vote based on an idea of marriage that does not exist in practice. They defend “traditional” marriage as if this is a flawless institution that has retained its perfection over centuries.

Marriage between a man and a woman, including those solemnised in a church, are no more or less prone to the vicissitudes of human relationships. Yet based on their idealised view of marriage churches argue that same-sex marriage would be an affront. It is the churches, not those who advocate marriage equality, that offend the norms, expectations and entitlements of a 21st century society.

Traditional marriage has earned itself no right to exclusivity. The proposition that Australian should vote ‘No’ because the Bible defines marriage as the union between a man and a woman is too ridiculous for words. Such nonsense has no place in a secular society. There is no religious ground that supersedes basic human and civil rights.

Homosexual Australians seeking marriage equality make no claim that they can do better at marriage than their hapless heterosexual brothers and sisters. They simply ask for the same right to have their love solemnised. Whether being married brings them weeks or a lifetime of happiness is not anyone’s business, just as it is not in the case of traditional marriage.

Religious freedom, or religious zealotry?

Religious institutions behave as if marriage is their proprietary product. It is not. But churches are doing more than advocating a ‘No’ vote. They are already preparing to assert their right to “religious freedom” in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote.

Not only will they demand the right to refuse to conduct same-sex weddings, they will demand the right not to employ anyone from a same-sex union in their schools, child-care centres, hospitals, aged-care facilities and any other organisation under their aegis. Or indeed anyone who simply supports same-sex marriage.

In an astonishing example of religious zealotry going well beyond the ambit of religious freedom, this week a Presbyterian church in the Victorian regional city of Ballarat refused to marry a couple because they had dared to express support for same-sex marriage on Facebook.

Days after the post, the minister of Ebenezer St John’s summoned the young couple – the bride is 26, the groom 25 – to inform them that he could not marry them, nor would they be permitted to hold their ceremony at the church.

In a letter to the bride published by Fairfax Media the minister wrote:

“After the pre-marital counselling that you attended and the sermons delivered at Ebenezer on this subject, you must surely appreciate that your commitment to same-sex marriage opposes the teaching of Christ Jesus and the scriptural position practiced by the Presbyterian Church of Australia and by me.

“This conflict of views has practical consequences in relation to your upcoming wedding.

“By continuing to officiate it would appear either that I support your views on same-sex marriage or that I am uncaring about this matter. As you know, neither statement is correct.

“Also, if the wedding proceeded in the Ebenezer St John’s church buildings, the same inferences could be drawn about the Presbyterian denomination. Such inferences would be wrong.”

This is an untenable over-reach by the Presbyterian church: not only does the church impose its will on same-sex couples, it even punishes those who dare to express a view in support of same-sex marriage. Why do we tolerate such rubbish?

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull not only tolerates it, he is fully supportive.

“Churches are entitled to marry or not marry whom they please. That is part of religious freedom,” he told Fairfax Media.

“As strongly as I believe in the right of same-sex couples to marry, even more strongly do I believe in religious freedom.”

PM says religious freedom trumps marriage equality

Perhaps it is good politics not to antagonise religious institutions lest it derail the ‘Yes’ campaign. Not so clear is why Turnbull felt it necessary to go the extra mile and declare his belief in religious freedom to be “even stronger” than his commitment to marriage equality.

Even in the event of marriage equality becoming law there is a clue in Turnbull’s trademark timidity that same-sex marriage will be not quite the equal of traditional marriage.

Why do we continue to give religious institutions such a powerful position in society? A position that is increasingly at odds with a secular society and which no longer has the social licence it once did.

If organised religion was embodied in one man, he would currently be in gaol for life for his heinous crimes against innocent children. He would certainly not be treated as a wise elder with a privileged place at the table to deliberate on the future of marriage. Yet religion’s position in society, as recognised by law, remains undiminished.

Churches are in no position to claim the moral authority to impose themselves on society.

We can only hope that an unintended outcome of the postal plebiscite is that Australians come to question why it is that in 2017 religion still has such force in our lives. It is well time to consider why churches continue to qualify for generous tax breaks, legal exemptions and elevated policy influence.

The marriage-equality debate – and the concessions demanded by churches – underscores their irrelevance.

The same-sex marriage debate over the weeks ahead places an overdue spotlight on the issue of marriage equality. The issue should have been decided by Parliament, and Malcolm Turnbull stands condemned that it was not, but even an inadequate “postal survey” is a welcome indicator of Australia’s social maturity. Not so long ago asking Australians to vote on same-sex marriage would have been unthinkable. Alas, our religious institutions possess no such maturity.

So it is to be welcomed that the marriage-equality debate will also shine a light on organised religion in Australia. Their conduct – and their demands in the name of religious freedom in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote – will hopefully prompt long overdue scrutiny of the role of institutional religion in Australia.

Churches have a right to exist and people have a right to worship at those churches, but it is time that the separation of church and state to which we pay lip service was given greater force of law.

Religion in a secular society is a marriage not made in heaven.

Leo D’Angelo Fisher is a Melbourne journalist and commentator. He is a former columnist with BRW and the Australian Financial Review. He was also a senior writer at The Bulletin magazine. Follow him on Twitter @DAngeloFisher

I am not a fan of the catch-all “LGBTIQ” and its elongated variations. I find it oddly self-marginalising and ungainly but also ill-premised: what makes the people behind each letter part of a single community? And what is its point if LGBTIQ is simply treated as a synonym for gay?

Take this story published by news.com.au on 20 August in which soapie actor Bryan Wiseman complains that police are dismissive of domestic violence among gay couples.

The journalist writes:

‘As a domestic violence (DV) survivor, 48-year-old Bryan is angry about the way police deal with DV incidents in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex or queer (LGBTIQ) community and is calling for increased training and awareness.’

On the one hand the journalist felt it necessary to spell out what LGBTIQ stands for; on the other hand it is extremely unlikely that Wiseman has conducted an exhaustive study of police attitudes to domestic violence in these various communities.

And from the quote attributed to Wiseman it is obvious that his scope is more narrow than the term LGBTIQ might suggest:

“It’s just the prejudice from some of them,” Bryan says, “I have come up against certain police who were plainly homophobic and they basically just didn’t want to attend because they thought it was a couple of gays in the suburbs having an argument.”

The use of LGBTIQ reminds me of the now defunct federal agency known as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which existed from 1990 to 2005. There were many reasons why ATSIC fell out of favour in the indigenous community, but one of them was that “ATSI” took off as an acronym meaning indigenous Australian, particularly in the public service and even among sections of the indigenous community.

Critics of the use of ATSI in this way found it dehumanising and culturally barren.

I wonder if this will be the fate of LGBTIQ? Its activist proponents will argue that they are entitled to label themselves as they please, even if we cannot be entirely sure who “they” are, and whether they really define themselves as “LGBTIQs”.

If the times deem it appropriate or necessary to contrive a single activist or political community out of the LGBTIQ communities, then I choose to favour “rainbow”, as in the “rainbow community”. Much more agreeable, don’t you think?

The Turnbull Government’s insistence on a tougher English-language test for migrants seeking Australian citizenship is at the very least perplexing and at worst alarming.

At first blush it might appear a reasonable requirement of new citizens, but what problem is the Government seeking to remedy? Why does the world’s most successful multicultural society, as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull so often describes Australia, suddenly need to overhaul its citizenship test, headlined by the requirement of English-language skills that many born-and-bred Australians may find challenging?

The absence of a clear explanation for a tougher English-language test can only invite the worst interpretation of the Government’s motives.

When it comes to using (and abusing) English language requirements as a barrier to migration, Australia has form going back to the very beginning of nationhood and the White Australia policy.

The Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 authorised immigration officials to dictate a passage of 50 words to a new arrival, who was required to write down and sign the given passage. The test was usually given in English, but if the migrant passed but was otherwise considered undesirable (that is, non-white), the immigration officer could repeat the test in another European language. This was the infamous Dictation Test.

The Turnbull Government is proposing nothing so blatant or draconian, but the intent would not be entirely unfamiliar to immigration officials enforcing the White Australia policy. Again, in the absence of a cogent explanation as to why Australia needs a tougher English-language test, the only available conclusion is that the Government wishes to filter out a certain group of people.

Those who support the Government’s tough stance on English-language skills say the same thing: “What’s wrong with expecting new citizens to read and write English?”

Of itself, nothing. But the tougher-test school makes various assumptions that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.

The first is that English deficiency has led to problems in the past. Of this there is no evidence; and even if it were to be demonstrated that this has been an issue, presumably it would be no greater than the problem caused by illiteracy levels in the wider Australian community. It would be unfair, not to say discriminatory, to requite new citizens to have higher English-language skills than born-and-bred Australian citizens.

The other assumption is that poor English is an unfailing indicator of character – of someone’s values, work ethic and good citizenship. New arrivals to Australia – or any country for that matter – do so with the intention of building a new and better life, with all the social and economic spin-offs that entails.

More about political optics

English or no English, some new citizens will immerse themselves in their new country, while others will leave it to their children and grandchildren to stake their claims as Australians. (And often there will be conflicts of cultural adjustment between generations, but that is a dynamic all of its own.)

The converse assumption that high English proficiency and a high score in the proposed values test would necessarily point to outstanding citizenship is simply naïve.

Criticism of the Government’s tougher approach to citizenship qualification is not to suggest that simply anyone can make Australia their home. But the Government’s get-tough approach is more about political optics than dealing with real deficiencies in our migration system. The continuation of John Howard’s infamous “we decide” mantra demonises rather than celebrates migrants to Australia; it places a question mark over the head of each person who does not sound or look like the rest of us.

If changes are needed, they should be considered at length, impartially and independently, based on public submissions and informed by Australia’s pre-eminent record as a multicultural society. Migration since the 1950s, a time of record migration to Australia, has not been without occasional social disruption, but on the whole it has delivered the society – and wealth – that most of us celebrate today.

We know what we have come to expect from Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, but surely we should expect better of Malcolm Turnbull. Their gratuitous call for tougher English-language testing is no better than those hurtful cries heard most frequently in the 1950s and 60s, “Why don’t you learn to bloody speak English!”, or more lyrically, “Why you no learna t’speaka da English?” Turnbull and his attack-dog Minister have given renewed license for such calls to be heard again.

My maternal grandparents migrated to Australia from Sicily in the 1950s. My grandfather had a rudimentary education roughly the equivalent of grade 3; my grandmother was illiterate. Neither learned to speak English, other than some basic words essential in the days of pre-self serve: milk, bread, butter, eggs. According to family lore, when my grandmother sat for your citizenship exam the English-language component involved her having to recite five English words; her selection included “Rinso” and “rump steak”.

I never heard either of my grandparents speak a whole sentence of English; they didn’t even qualify for “broken English”. Yet their contribution to Australia is beyond question.

He was always ‘Joe’

My grandfather worked in factories as a labourer for 20 years before he retired. “Giuseppe” was too difficult for his Australian workmates, so he was always Joe. Giuseppe was of a dark hue; in 1920s Australia he would have been classed as a “white alien”. (As in fact was my paternal grandfather when he migrated to Australia in 1925, except he was fair-skinned, reflecting Sicily’s own multicultural/racial history over millennia.)

But Giuseppe knew nothing of Australia’s vexed history of grudging tolerance and outright intolerance; or if he did, he did not let it get in the way of becoming a passionate Australian. His most prized possession was his citizenship certificate and his most abiding loyalty was to the Queen.

My grandmother, Rosa, was fair and blue-eyed. When she worked in her beautiful front garden, passers-by would assume she could speak English and would stop for a chat about the garden. Perhaps gardening is a universal language, because Rosa’s lack of English didn’t stop her from having the most animated conversations with little old ladies who wouldn’t have known Italy from a gum boot.

Despite their English-language “deficiency”, Giuseppe and Rosa bought a house, their five children, most migrating with them as adults, all worked and bought their own homes. Their grandchildren went to public and private schools, some played footy for local clubs, several went to university, and all went on to work in a variety of occupations: journalist, accountant, teacher, public servant and various trades.

So what’s the problem, PM? Loaded calls for tough English-language tests are clearly designed to appeal to a section of the Australian population – and backbench – whose intolerance hardly needs further stoking. The calls are presumably aimed at Muslims – or seen to be aimed at Muslims – buy they are a slap in the face for all migrants who over the decades have come to Australia with only positive ambitions: to rebuild, prosper, enjoy freedoms and to give back as best they can.

For Malcolm Turnbull to say otherwise is to repudiate his own boast that Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world.

Leo D’Angelo Fisher is a Melbourne journalist and commentator. He is a former columnist with BRW and the Australian Financial Review. He was also a senior writer at The Bulletin magazine. Follow him on Twitter @DAngeloFisher

Like all journalists my work involves speaking to a lot of people from a wide spread of backgrounds. While I ask most of the questions, there is one question that I am asked more than any other: “Where does your surname come from?”

I don’t mind being asked; it is, I suppose, an unusual double-barrelled surname and I can understand that it arouses some curiosity. Personally, I’ve never been tempted to quiz anybody about their double-handled moniker. I assume it’s either a traditional (or “heritable”) family name or a latter-day creation arising from marriage which may or may not endure.

My attitude to names is strictly aesthetic and I have never been fond of my original name Leo D’Angelo. It was never to my liking, but it was as a byline that it caused me the most irritation. I could never quite put my finger on my distaste for it; possibly because both names ended in ‘o’, but I think the closest I can come to an explanation is the name’s lack of symmetry.

When my wife and I decided to marry I suggested that we adopt a joint surname and she was agreeable. She was the Fisher.

We planned to marry in January 1989, immediately after which we were to travel to Hong Kong, where I was to join Far East Business magazine as deputy editor (I was with BRW at the time). To ensure that out passports carried out new names we went to the office of Births, Deaths and Marriages to make the changes – a remarkably simple process.

Adding my wife’s name to mine was a statement of my adoration for her but also an opportunity to recalibrate my name. It was a decision made much easier by the fact that I liked the name Fisher.

I put quite some thought into my new name. I decided that I would carry the two names without a hyphen. I also weighed up whether I preferred Leo D’Angelo Fisher or Leo Fisher D’Angelo. Again, the only consideration at this point was aesthetics and I chose the former.

When we emerged from the office we compared documents and I discovered that, contrary to our original plan, my wife had opted to make D’Angelo one of her middle names. I thought it an odd thing to do, but I considered the matter of names to be strictly one for her. As far as I was concerned deciding to retain her surname was entirely reasonable.

“If she really loved you…”

Our respective parents were not so sanguine. My wife’s father, a gentle but straight-laced fellow, was of the view that, as dictated by tradition, my wife should have adopted my surname. My parents, meanwhile, were apoplectic with indignation. “If she really loved you she would take your name,” they both argued. The issue was the only occasion that both sets of parents caucused to register their joint disapproval. Despite some lobbying, my wife and I stood firm.

In time my parents grew to love my wife, but the furore over the name was enough for them to view my marriage in very frosty terms.

Six years later, when our first of three sons was born, the matter of the name resurfaced. While I had my own reasons for adopting the twin-surname I was unfussed as to whether our children should carry my name. We agreed that they would be Fishers, with each of the boys having D’Angelo as their middle name. My parents stewed in silence.

My decision to become Leo D’Angelo Fisher was not without incident, comical and otherwise.

One editor, who knew me by my original name, initially refused to run my new byline – a matter not without irony – arguing that I could either have Leo D’Angelo or Leo Fisher, but not both. I had to produce documentary evidence that this was my name and that’s the byline I insisted upon. He eventually relented.

On another occasion, while we were living in Brisbane, where I was deputy editor of Business Queensland newspaper, my in-laws came to visit. At the time the newspaper was having a staff conference at Noosa, so my in-laws stayed at the same hotel. During an evening function I introduced the Fishers to Business Queensland’s publisher, an urbane American of considerable charm, who immediately assumed they were my parents. “What a great pleasure to meet Leo’s parents,” he gushed with great fanfare. After lavishing praise on “their son” it was considered too awkward to set the publisher straight. For the duration of the conference, the Fishers were my parents.

When my wife and I divorced after 25 years of marriage, the matter of my surname did not arise. As far as I was concerned it was a given that I would retain it. It was my name; it was my byline. And so it remains. I have not enquired whether my wife still bears her unusual middle name.

Leo D’Angelo Fisher is a Melbourne journalist and commentator. He is a former columnist with BRW and the Australian Financial Review. He was also a senior writer at The Bulletin magazine. Follow him on Twitter @DAngeloFisher or correspond via leodangelofisher@gmail.com

Convicted rapist Luke Lazarus, the son of a Sydney nightclub owner, was recently sentenced to a maximum of five years’ gaol for raping a teenage girl in a Kings Cross alley. Lazarus will be eligible for release after just three years. When a convicted rapist is sentenced to three to five years’ gaol, something is very, very wrong.

This is not another “tough on crime” tub-thump. This is specifically about rape and how it is viewed by society. What the Lazarus case demonstrated with unmistakable clarity is society’s untroubled view of rape; a view which neither accords with the horror of the crime, nor with the shameful reality that women continue to be preyed upon by men as a matter of entitlement and power lust.

The refusal to confront the horror and prevalence of rape is in great part a gender issue, a manifestation of some men’s ingrained view of women. It is also a much wider social and cultural issue. Men who have a less than enlightened view of women are given sanction by social and cultural norms that remain tolerant of aggressive male behaviour towards women.

The continued endemic incidence of rape is a manifestation of a society that – irrespective of whatever progress has been made towards equality of the sexes – condones a level of risk that women must endure simply and precisely because they are women. That is, there is a price attached to being a woman, which can be an ostensibly benign wolf-whistle at one end of the spectrum, and rape (and murder) at the other extreme.

We know that society is sickened by rape-murder cases. Recent incidents, which need not be reprised here, galvanise communities in grief, sorrow and even guilt like few other crimes of savagery do. But when it comes to rape itself, somehow a completely different set of values applies.

There was upset expressed when a stand-up comedian recently made a joke about rape, but it came to no more than a social media brush fire, with arguments for and against the comedian’s right to tell the joke (such as it was).

In the 1960s comedians could tell jokes about rape without raising a murmur; casual references to rape would feature in TV and film dialogue with impunity. In these instances “rape” is used as another word for “sex”, albeit understood to be forceful or meeting with resistance, but ultimately framed in the self-serving mythology that “no really means yes”. Such sanguine references to rape carry the understanding that women deserve and/or come to enjoy it.

The use of the word “rape” in its sanitised form, and the stylised depiction of it, has hardly disappeared. It is still to be found in all forms of popular culture: in film, music and advertising, on television and social media, and comedians’ routines. Since the rise of the feminist movement in the 1970s, however, it’s more likely to meet with condemnation when it is encountered. Hopefully by men and women. I still hear the word used in the most cavalier – and blokey – way and it shocks me.

A failure to confront the horror of rape

Feminist theory calls this “rape culture”, a social conditioning or normalisation of rape perpetuated by language, stereotyped gender roles and male attitudes towards women, and the popular portrayal of women. But it doesn’t require feminist dogma to understand that as a society we have yet to fully confront the horror and prevalence of rape, which brings us back to the Luke Lazarus case.

Lazarus, 23, was in his father’s King Cross night club, the Soho, in the early hours of the morning, when he approached the 18-year-old woman on the dance floor, told her he owned the club and invited her to the VIP area. He led her outside – she willingly accompanied Lazarus – and they kissed. At this point the woman said she wanted to return to her friend inside, whereupon Lazarus pulled her stockings and skirt down, ignored a second plea to be allowed to leave, and ordered the terrified woman to “Put your fucking hands on the wall.” (Try to imagine the overwhelming terror felt by the young woman at this point, alone and in a dark alley.) Lazarus then told her to get on her hands and knees and ordered her to “arch your back”. He then anally raped her, deaf to her plea that she was a virgin. The ordeal lasted around 10 minutes. The next day Lazarus would boast to a friend by text message that he “took a chick’s virginity”.

District Court Judge Sarah Huggett described the attack as “spontaneous and opportunistic”. Opportunistic I can begin to understand, but spontaneous? I find it difficult to fathom rape as a spontaneous act; it strikes me as a very deliberate, calculated and debased assault. It is an act that reeks of power, entitlement and callous indifference. Lazarus claimed the woman was a willing participant because she didn’t physically resist or scream. “I still 100% state that I believe everything that happened on that night was consensual.” The traditional defence: she wanted it.

Judge Huggett dealt forcefully with that canard: “She [the victim] had the right to go to Kings Cross, to be intoxicated, to kiss a man. She also had the right to say she wanted to return to her friend. The offender ignored that.”

The Lazarus case underlines that sentences imposed on convicted rapists – or available to judges – are too lenient and wholly at odds with the horror of this vicious crime. Can there be a more debased and destructive assault on someone that stops so short of taking that person’s life? As the victim said in this case: “A part of me died that day.”

It simply should not be possible for a convicted rapist to be sentenced to 3-5 years. Such a sentence says to society that rape, while serious, is just an inevitable part of life. “What are you gonna do? Boys will be boys.”

At the sentencing hearing references were heard in support of Lazarus’ “good character” and urging the judge not to impose a custodial sentence. These testimonials likewise reflected society’s ambivalent attitude towards rape.

Can a rapist be of good character?

These were leading citizens who spoke for Lazarus: Waverley Mayor Sally Betts, the secretary of the Consulate-General of Greece in Brisbane Tsambico Athanasas, Bank of Sydney chairman Nick Pappas and Greek Orthodox parish priest Fr Gerasimos Koutsouras.

But it is precisely because of the standing and good reputation of these community leaders that the impact of their testimonials gives cause for concern.

Their comments were doubtlessly made in good faith and with evident affection for Lazarus and his family. But in speaking for Lazarus in such high terms they, however inadvertently, undermined the suffering and torment of the victim, and the gravity of the crime itself.

Ms Betts urged Judge Huggett not to gaol Lazarus. “The conviction is inconsistent with the gentle, well mannered and respectful young man that I know.” Quite apart from the obvious that she plainly did not know him as well as she thought, one can only wonder what the mayor’s female constituency made of her plea that a convicted rapist be spared a prison sentence.

Fr Koutsouras declared: “The possibility of imprisonment is completely undeserved for this promising young man.” It is hard to fathom that a man of God would state a belief that imprisonment is “undeserved” in the case of a convicted rapist.

Dr Pappas, a lawyer and respected businessman, said of Lazarus: “I have always observed him to be a respectful, courteous and obliging young man who has, on my observation, never displayed even a hint of unlawfulness in his conduct.”

The conviction, of course, reflected not the pious Lazarus that his referees had occasion to know, but the swaggering rapist who on 12 May 2013 committed an act of utter depravity on an 18 year old girl whose life will never be the same again.

At issue is not the integrity or honour of these community leaders called on to speak for the reputation of Luke Lazarus. The issue is that in doing so they have sent out ambivalent signals about rape as a serious crime.

Why the justice system even permits this roll call of testimonials in the case of rape is beyond understanding. This is not the robbery of a 7-11 convenience store. This is about an angry, aggressive and arrogant young man who felt entitled to defile a young woman he had plucked from the dance floor with that very intention.

Given that a conviction has been made, having leading citizens speak glowingly of the convicted rapist is in effect, however unintentionally, saying to the victim: “Sorry about that little fracas at the Soho, but Luke is really a good kid.”

Those who spoke for Lazarus would have done well to consider that their words may have brought comfort to his family, but also hurt and insult to the family of the victim. They will have caused confusion and anger in the community, and in some cases given succour to those men of who might be wondering what all the fuss is about.

Rape is not only a crime against one individual, it is a crime against all women, and it is a crime against society.

Sentences for rape should reflect the depravity and life-long impact of the crime; they should send a message loud and clear that there are no grey areas when it comes to rape.

The sentencing process, where such testimonials are permitted, should reflect on the hurt such glowing tributes bring to the victim, and the message they send out to the community. Those who would speak glowingly of convicted rapists may wish to reflect on the wider impact of their statements.

As for the self-pitying Lazarus: “My life, at least in Australia, has been completely destroyed and now I have to live the rest of my life knowing every single person in Australia, or at least Sydney, knows I have been convicted of a sex offence.”